Hacker News Reader

"The visual design, the interaction design, the writing and reading experiences, the social incentives, the notification system: all of it is top notch."

I SO disagree here. It's a mess. It's 10x more complex than it needs to be. And it's horribly unapproachable for new/non-geeky users. I've had non-technical relatives sit down and try to use it who were positively baffled by the user-experience.

I think Quora is an example of what happens if you listen exclusively to your most active users, when you should be tempering that with conversations with new and drive-by users. The Curse of Knowledge is deadly for product designers (http://hbr.org/2006/12/the-curse-of-knowledge/ar/1).

Agreed. Its always felt spammy to me - "Register to see more than the first answer." Why??

Growth. It's spammy, but it works.

I guess. I would have agreed, except that Stack Overflow pointed the way. Quora feels like freaking Experts Exchange to me.

Definitely agree. Some of the stuff is just terribly confusing and very visually dense.

As a power user I really liked the early iterations of the UI. But it went downhill for me around the time they added posts. They added a lot of spammy follow crap too.

The quality of content is hard to manage. There's no granularity in rating content, but when the content persists, isn't meant to be forgotten like HN comments, that's a serious flaw. Answers and wikis should be gradually improved, voted on per edit, etc.

I agree that when you're not in editor/contributor mode there is too much going on. There should be a separate browsing and contributing UX.

Simplifying all UIs for the lowest common denominator is not the way. Bicycles vs tricycles argument of Doug Engelbart and Alan Kay.

I think one's opinions on the UI depend a lot on what the perceived audience is. If they're really after random internet users, then yes, I think it's too complex. But I think their initial play has been for that small slice of people who contribute content, vote extensively, and comment usefully. Because those are the people you need to generate a very large base of content, which is necessary to draw in the people who are going to do the ad-clicking to pay for it.

Am I the only one who sees none of this "top notch system"? Last time i used it it felt clunky* , now every time i get a search result to them on a random computer, they ask me to login to read the answer, experts-exchange-style. Thanks, but no thanks.

PS. I guess the people who find this useful live in San Francisco, and enjoy the "insider" feel.

*: Right now, while viewing any question while logged out, the "Continue with facebook" button text wraps outside the button.

Seriously. They are the new experts exchange to me. I consider their presence in my search results a nuisance.

I believe if it was any other website, google would penalize them for spamming their results. But it's not happening due to silicon valley nepotism.

If you haven't logged in, then I think yes, you're not seeing it. As a power user, I think they've done a great job. As I mention elsewhere, I think that their initial focus is the power users, because those are the people who have been creating the content they need if they are going to attract regular users.

I do like their simple form and layout, they have indeed got an elegant site. Nice piece of UX engineering without a doubt.

There can't (in my v. humble opinion) be any realistic way of recouping 80 million from a Q&A site. They would surely need to be extremely aggressive at the least.

Yeah. Having served some time in the magazine industry, there's a common pattern there:

You decide to make something way better than the existing alternatives. Your smart and literary friends tell you it's a great idea, because they want something better too. You find inexperienced investors with the same vision, and present them with early samples that make them say, "Yes! This awesome! Let me invest in your vision." Then you start shipping, and the small fraction of the population that isn't satisfied with mid-market stuff signs up and praises you. You're not profitable, but everybody is so excited that you keep going, possibly for years, getting new investor money and never selling as much as you hope.

Basically, it's like making a quirky indie film and thinking it will be a $500m blockbuster because you and your friends love it so. My fear is that Quora's on exactly the same path. That this new chunk of money comes from an outsider, Tiger Global, worries me further.

I think Stack Overflow definitely can, but mostly because it has a very high value audience that can be monetized through ad sales and and its job posting biz.